ECONOMIC FORECASTS

ECONOMIC FORECASTS Every three months The Economist polls a group of forecasters and calculates the average of their predictions of growth and current-account balances for 25 emerging economies. Since our last poll in October, our seers have become slightly less gloomy about the prospects for some of Asia's crisis-hit economies. For instance, Indonesia's economy is now expected to shrink by 3.8% during 1999, compared with a 4.4% forecast in October. Thailand's economy, according to our seers' average, will dwindle by 0.4% in 1999, after shrinking by an estimated 7.8% in 1998. Forecasters are more optimistic about South Korea: they are now expecting the economy to grow by 0.7% this year

LATIN OUTLOOK Six months ago South America was tipped to be the world's fastest-growing region. No longer. Our forecasters now expect Brazil's economy to shrink by 3.3% in 1999, while Argentina's GDP will grow a mere 0.9%.